Winter Hits Arizona

Old Man Winter has descended upon southern Arizona. It's cold, I tell ya! The other morning I was working in the office with my fuzzy pants, fuzzy socks, fuzzy sweatshirt, my fuzzy robe draped across my lap, and I just couldn't break the chill I caught overnight. My people mocked me into submission after I turned on the heat to get the house up to 68 degrees. I caved, but have since put extra blankets on the bed and have taken to wearing socks and long sleeve shirts. Since I was so harshly criticized for turning on the heat, I stubbornly refused to do it again until one of them suggested it. When Patrice scurried into bed shivering, I asked him if he wanted me to warm the house during the night. He added another blanket to the bed and gave me permission to touch the thermostat.

Wouldn't you know, our freezing overnight temperatures brought illness too. Patrice caught a fever and a chill and body aches and walked around with a blanket. Nicco carried a blanket out of sympathy, and to be like his papa.

On this chilly day, Nicco spent the afternoon playing cars with Mamie. He asked me to help him ask her to play with him. He repeated the words I told him and they went to the coffee table to line up all his cars. He looked carefully at each one and said, for example, "ca c'est rouge, et noir, et un petit peu gris." It was super cute, if I do say so myself.

After all the cars were lined up, he had to go help his Papi put up the Christmas lights.

Winter in Tucson has also created a lot of movement among the wildlife. We've seen tons of quail families scurrying about, presumably getting nests ready for winter. We've also seen 3 more scorpions in the past few days. I keep thinking they will just die, but apparently, they want to get out of the cold too. Yesterday we took a drive in the foothills and saw 3 coyotes! I guess they might be on the move too, or maybe I just stumbled on their territory for the first time. Either way, it was pretty cool.

I am actually heating the house at night to keep it above 66. We had been getting down to 63, and that is just too darn cold for me! It takes considerably less time to get above 70 when we start at 66. Nicco has taken to wearing a shirt to bed. And in case anyone wonders, he's still sleeping in his tent.